CAMERON MILNER: Liberals could challenge the Albanese Government if they stopped acts of self-harm

Bob Hawke famously said of the Liberals: “If you can’t govern yourselves, you can’t govern the country”.

If Anthony Albanese were a Labor leader anywhere close to Hawke he could deliver the same devastating line today. But he can’t, as the polls show punters don’t like him much either.

Last week’s stand off between rebel Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the Liberals’ notional leader, Sussan Ley, was a terrible moment of political narcissism.

No wonder two national polls out on Monday show voters further rejecting the conservatives.

Voters don’t like politicians on a good day, but watching day after day of the Liberals talking about themselves, rather than taking the Albanese Government to task was always going to end in tears — and bad polls.

Labor can’t believe its luck.

They had an election gifted to a hapless Albanese by a Liberal party that promised higher taxes and more national debt. Angus Taylor should be honoured with a medal for services to the Labor Party.

The ALP primary hasn’t moved

The Liberals’ campaign, run by hopeless Andrew Hirst, was a disaster. It was amateur hour in comparison to the vastly superior one by the erudite Paul Erickson.

Given he was selling Albanese to voters and still delivered a Labor landslide is proof of his genius. If it’s not him it will be his wife Dimity rewarded with Dreyfus’ seat, no doubt.

And since the election the Government has barely broken a sweat while still doing very little as a Labor Government or requiring anything more than a part time PM.

The Liberals should’ve been on the front foot over the total disaster that was the Pacific Forum. The Chinese beat DFAT by sinking a planned $500 million security agreement with Vanuatu, all while turning the host nation the Solomon Islands into a police state by fingerprinting every single citizen.

Still nothing to see according to Albo, as he feels zero pressure from the Opposition.

He has time to do podcasts and take Gen Z dares in our national Parliament rather than governing. Our TikTok PM has clocked off.

Last week as the security deal fell apart because Penny Wong’s diplomats are appear useless against Beijing, Albo hung out with a local boy band and took selfies. Our part time PM was the Pacific Islands party PM.

All the while the Liberals keep talking about themselves rather putting Labor under pressure.

Disunity is death in politics and certainly Alex Hawke’s intervention against Price was a good old factional hit job in the party’s hard right.

But it shouldn’t have taken three days to get to the point of sacking Price.

What she said about recent migrants from India was derogatory and ignorant in equal measure.

The Indian diaspora is a fluid cohort of highly sophisticated voters brought up in the world’s largest democracy. The community continues to make very significant contributions to Australia at both a cultural level, but especially in commerce as they invest both intellectual and financial capital in our shared nation.

Price’s logic of “we don’t support you because you don’t vote for us” would see her have the Liberals stand against both women and anyone under 40.

She wasn’t misquoted, she didn’t apologise and instead used the moment to shirtfront Sussan Ley. All she did was gift Albanese another week — maybe many — of being laid back, lazy and under no pressure to deliver.

Ley looked weak, slow and out of touch by delaying punishment.

The issue of migration is but a minor skirmish next to the challenge to the Liberals of how they will handle the net zero debate that is coming.

Across the globe, Keir Starmer’s Labour Government has lost its deputy PM to a tax scandal, sacked its Jeffrey Epstein pal and ambassador to the US and is behind in every national poll, despite a record number of seats in the Commons.

The Government is barely 14 months old and there’s open speculation of Starmer being replaced if an alternative can be found.

The Liberals could have the Albanese Government in the same place if they could just stop stupid acts of self-harm and focus instead on what voters want. In the end as Graham Richardson often says: the voters are always right.

Ley most probably won’t lead the Liberals at the next election, but if they are going to not simply gift the ALP another term by a landslide they can’t keep doing what they’re doing.

The Liberals are blessed that at least for the moment there’s no Australian equivalent of Reform Party leader Nigel Farage. In the UK it is Reform that now leads in the polls ahead of both Labour and the Conservatives.

But that complacency shouldn’t be taken as an advantage as today’s polls show.

The ALP primary hasn’t moved. Instead they take huge advantage from an Opposition fighting amongst themselves.

Albanese is leading a listless show that even scuppered its own Treasurer’s productivity summit lest Jim Chalmers look like a better leader than the current bloke. The PM is doing podcasts rather than making policy decisions.

There is such fertile ground for the Liberals, yet they are proving Bob Hawke’s point.

Their desire to talk about themselves and fight each other rather than Albanese has delivered a predictable set of polls.

All the last week has shown — despite Albanese’s many missteps — is that if you can’t govern yourselves you’ll never get to govern the country and voters always get it right.